


On Sacrifice

by sgtfarron



Series: Nights [3]
Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: And selfishness, Character Study, F/F, Light Angst, On relationships, Sacrifice, neurodivergent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-20
Updated: 2016-02-20
Packaged: 2018-05-22 00:28:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6063844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sgtfarron/pseuds/sgtfarron
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sacrifice, as anything but an action, was never something you really understood. Until you did (and, really, at times you wish you never did).</p>
            </blockquote>





	On Sacrifice

**Author's Note:**

> As usual this is written with zero innentions of trying to 100% give perspective on how a sociopath might be able to do/reason/make sense of a reciprocal relationship, but rather to try and find and explore a personal understanding on Shaw as a character given my own experience with my own pd and blunted emotions. 
> 
> Also, as per usual this hasnt really been edited either so my apologies for that. Just wanted to write something again.

You’ve been thinking about her...wellbeing more and more these days.

You watch Root sometimes when she’s busy moving around and interacting with other members of the team and you wonder. You wonder if she is a masochist in more than one way; an emotional masochist. Because you can’t imagine  _ wanting _ to give things to someone just to have them be thoroughly unresponsive; to know it will never be returned in kind (truly). 

Yet she sticks around you. Always giving, but never pushing. 

You think she’ll likely burn out eventually. Part of you hopes that by then you’ll have gotten to the point where you’ll be able to put her first. To act against your own self-interest and walk away before it gets to that (You acted against your self-interest like that once, at the stock exchange. You never thought, though, about how it would be like to live after such a choice, to commit to that selflessness). 

The thought of knowingly hurting her these days turns over in your mind more than you’d ever admit. 

You could do it (hurt her); you just don’t want to. (Like when you tried to become a doctor, joined the Marines, and then the ISA. Just because you could do bad things doesn’t mean you ever  _ wanted _ to).

That’s progress. Because you’ve never thought that about another person. To actively want to avoid someone else’s hurt, even at your own loss. Especially at your own loss, that part is important; it’s a part that was noticeably absent in your more grandiose commitments no matter how much ‘sacrifice’ was touted as par for the course, because you never felt it (until Cole that is, there was a brief period where the unfairness of that weighed on you, but it was settled, Harold’s contribution laying it to rest and you moved forward just the same). 

You wanted to avoid hurting her and her  _ being _ hurt enough that you threw yourself in that line of fire at the stock exchange. Reese would have done it, for the mission, the team, his  _ friends _ if he had been able. But he couldn’t. Which meant it were either you or Root. 

You knew that she had been planning on throwing herself on that figurative fire for weeks; the stint at the hotel with Martine and Simon left no room for denial. She was going to go full martyr, her own value to the mission and the team becoming null and void if it meant keeping you all alive to fight on. 

So you made a choice. You didn’t want to hurt her, but you were willing to do so for the mission (for her) because you were dispensable, she wasn’t (to the mission, and as it turns out, begrudgingly, to you). 

You learned a thing or two about  _ sacrifice _ that day. You learned it was a real bitch. If you are given even a minute to mull it over before and during, you realized, it has a way of leaving a bitter taste in your mouth (even to someone like you). Well, you think, you couldn’t be sure if it’d be the same under a circumstance where you went out in a blaze of glory for the sake of some run-of-the-mill number where the situation went pair shaped. But, you can’t help but admit to yourself that there is a very real part of you that thinks that, yes, after everything you’d probably get that same bitter taste if your mind had a chance to think of  _ her _ first.

You don’t ever want to have to make  _ that _ choice again. Between letting her be hurt and hurting her to keep her from _being_ hurt. At least physically, in life-or-death (or maim) situations, you could. You can’t say the same for the realm of just her emotions, her  _ feelings _ . You wish you could but the fact that you’ve let this lop-sided…relationship continue kind of points at you not really giving a damn enough to choose like you did that day. You  _ could _ choose to walk away now, to hurt her now, to end the strain that must come from all the giving; to save her from the burn out you know must be coming. 

You don’t though.

You're too selfish. You don’t want to have to live in the reality after that kind of sacrifice, too comfortable with the way things are and how much you  _ like  _ it to change it, even for her. 

Well, that and a little something else. 

You might just be making it up to justify you selfish desires. 

Or it may just be her emotional masochism bleeding through trying to egg you into continuing this cycle.

But, you swear sometimes you see something in the way she’ll look at you. Something that reads like she knows something you don’t, like she knows something (or a great many things)  _ about _ you that you don’t. And it adds to your hesitation.

She is giving you that look to you right now from over her left shoulder as she takes a break from looking at whatever Finch and she had been discussing at his desk and you have to pause your own task of cleaning your rifle for a moment. You hesitate.

You think that maybe there is something to that look. That there may really be something that she can see and understand that you just  _ can’t _ . The thing is, you  _ have _ been deviating from the norm,  _ your  _ norm for some time now seemingly in ever widening arcs (yet you still feel like you, despite being able to see these differences plainly). Maybe there is a concept you just can’t grasp underlying these changes that she can.

You let yourself hang onto that thought irregardless of its irrationality. It feeds your selfishness and pushes back that potential sacrifice so it need not bear fruit.

It flies in the face of everything that you understand. From your experience and understanding this is just an imbalance between you and it’s not good for her. Period. Everything else is wishful thinking. A way around a hard choice. So even though you let yourself think on it, you always have to convince yourself of its potential, like you are doing now.

In the meantime you’ll continue to let her give you what she will (her time, her patience, her  _ gifts  _ in all the forms they come) and not voice any complaints. Because you like this, you like  _ her. _

Sacrifice, as anything but an action, was never something you really understood. Until you did (and, really, at times you wish you never did).

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. Just trying to work some shit out for myself. Hope you enjoyed and have a wonderful day.
> 
> sgt-farron.tumblr.com


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